Month: December 2010

FINAL SCORE: Kansas 78, Cal 63. Markieff Morris scored 21 points for the third-ranked Jayhawks (11-0) while Josh Selby and Tyrel Reed each scored 18. Gutierrez had 15 for the Bears (6-5) and Sanders-Frison had 10 points and 12 rebounds.

2:11 2nd H: Sorry for the detour — late-night print-edition deadline beckons. KU leads 76-58. Crabbe and Gutierrez have 11 each for Cal, MSF has 10 points and 12 rebounds. Markieff Morris has 19 for the Jayhawks, and Selby and Tyrel Reed each have 18.

8:47 2nd H: Two FTs by Markieff Morris and its 63-49. A 13-2 run by Kansas.

Harper Kamp and his Cal teammates know what they’re up against Wednesday night at Haas Pavilion.

They’re facing a Kansas team that hasn’t played a true road game all season.

Actually, that doesn’t exactly tell the story. The third-ranked Jayhawks are 10-0 and won the only game they have ever played in Berkeley. That was 54 years ago with Wilt Chamberlain on their side.

Cal’s most recent victory over KU in the Bay Area? It was Jan. 4, 1929 — before the stock market crash — and it came against a rare bad Kansas team. The Jayhawks were 3-15 that season.

“Anyone who grew up wanting to play college basketball knows about Kansas. They’re a real good team, obviously,” Kamp said. “They don’t have a lot of weaknesses. We’re just going to have to go out there and play good basketball. We’ve definitely got our hands full.”

— USC 65, Tennessee 64: The Trojans (7-5) posted their first road victory since last Feb. 18, holding off the 19th-ranked Volunteers (7-3) in Knoxville, where USC coach Kevin O’Neill coached from 1994-97. The victory came three days after USC lost just two points at No. 3 Kansas, and gives USC perhaps the Pac-10’s best two non-conference victories, along with its win over Texas. Maurice Jones had 15 points, Alex Stepheson and Jio Fontan each scored 13 and Bryce Jones contributed 11.

— Oklahoma State 79, Stanford 68: The Cardinal (6-4) led by as many as six points in the first half at Stillwater, Okla., but couldn’t leep pace and fell to the Cowboys (11-1). Josh Owens had 21 points and 10 rebounds for Stanford, Jeremy Green scored 17, and freshman point guard came off the bench to score a career-high 15.

— UCLA 75, Montana State 59: The Bruins (7-4) got 18 points from junior guard Malcolm Lee and 15 from sophomore forward Reeves Nelson to beat the Bobcats, still winless in six road games. UCLA won despite shooting 2 for 13 from the 3-PT arc.

— Idaho 69, Oregon 65: The Ducks (7-5) lost for the third time this season at home, thanks in part to 34-percent shooting that included 7 for 29 from the 3-PT line. Joevan Catron had 18 points and six rebounds for Oregon.

On Wednesday night, Mike Montgomery will be involved in another college basketball game carrying Pete Newell’s name.

This time his Cal squad takes on third-ranked Kansas in the inaugural Pete Newell Classic at Haas Pavilion. Cal will recognize its late, legendary coach by naming one home game in his honor each season.

Ten years ago Tuesday — on Dec. 21, 2000 — Montgomery and his Stanford squad played in the Pete Newell Challenge, the now-defunction yearly doubleheader that brought together top-level teams.

The 2000 Newell Challenge produced one of the greatest nights of college basketball in Bay Area history.

Top-ranked Duke led by as many as 15 points in the second half before 3rd-ranked Stanford pulled out an 84-83 victory when Casey Jacobsen banked in a 1o-foot shot with 3.6 seconds left.

The game thrilled 19,804 fans at the Oakland Coliseum Arena — still a record for the biggest crowd to watch a college basketball game in California — including luminaries such as Condoleeza Rice, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. No one was more elated than Stanford alum Tiger Woods, who famously leapt from his courtside seat and thrust his fists skyward when Jacobsen’s shot went in.

Asked what he recalled of the game, Montgomery said, “I liked the last of it, the end of it.”

— Arizona 72, North Carolina State 62: A decent win across the country for the Wildcats (10-2), who got 22 points from sophomore forward Derrick Williams and 31 points from their bench. Arizona won despite shooting 4 for 16 from the 3-PT line and getting outrebounding 36-28.

— Washington State 85, Santa Clara 79, OT: Klay Thompson hit a 3-pointer with 15 seconds left in regulation, then scored seven of his 23 points in overtime as the Cougars (8-1) survived on the road against the Broncos (6-6). DeAngelo Casto had 15 points and 10 rebounds for WSU. Reggie Moore — in his fourth game back after a wrist injury — scored a season-high 15 and Marcus Capers had 14, also a season-high.

In the 10th game of the season, determined to find a way to end freshman guard Gary Franklin’s long shooting slump, coach Mike Montgomery did the counter-intuitive thing: He put the ball in Franklin’s hands.

Franklin played long stretches of the second half at point guard Saturday vs. Cal Poly, and the move worked out OK. The Bears won 51-41 and Franklin played one of his better games of the season. Franklin finished with nine points on 3-for-6 shooting on the heels of going 3 for 23 over the previous three games.

Franklin entered the game converting just 27 percent from the field, 27.4 percent from the 3-point arc.

The switch also meant that junior Jorge Gutierrez was moved off point to the wing, where he made only 4 of 14 shots, but scored seven of his 10 points in the second half.

“I felt really good playing the point,” Franklin said. “The coaches are starting to trust me more and more in practice. I felt happy about that.”

Montgomery said he talked with a couple of Franklin’s former coaches, who suggested Franklin operates best with the ball in his hands.

“Gary will give the ball up. Jorge is sometimes hanging onto the ball too long, trying to create too much,”Montgomery said. “Gary will give it up early, trying to give others an opportunity.

“It was nothing that was revolutionary, but there were some good plays made both ways.”

Will be interesting to see if the experiment continues Wednesday when Kansas comes to town.

— UCLA 86, BYU 79: The Bruins (6-4) did what Arizona could not do by beating the No. 16 Cougars (10-1) at the Wooden Classic in Anaheim. Reeves Nelson scored a career-high 23 points, Tyler Honeycutt added 17 and eight rebounds and freshman center Josh Smith had 15 points and eight rebounds. That’s 55 points from the Bruins’ starting frontcourt. Jimmer Fredette had 25 points for BYU, but also seven of its 19 turnovers.

— Washington 80, USF 52: The Huskies (7-3) remained perfect (6-0) at home by routing the Dons (4-6). Scott Suggs shot 3 for 3 from 3-PT and scored 15 points, as the UW bench contributed 31 points. Starting guards Isaiah Thomas (12 points, five assists) and Abdul Gaddy (10 points, seven assists) combined for 22 and 12. Senior forward Matthew Bryan-Amaning, back in the starting lineup after four games coming off the bench, had 10 points and nine rebounds.

— George Washington 87, Oregon State 79: The Beavers (4-6) lost their fourth game in the past five and dropped to 3-3 at home. Jared Cunningham (San Leandro HS) scored a career-high 21 points, including 15 for 15 from the FT line, and Calvin Haynes scored 16. But the Beavers shot 4 for 19 from 3-PT and committed 19 turnovers.